9/25/2010

UNCOVERING BARENTS SEA. (Scoperchiando il Mare di Barents)

Talking to journalists this week, Minister Trutnev called the Russian-Norwegian delimitation of the Barents Sea as “a truly historical event for the development of Russian geology”. –We get the chance to study, and then hopefully exploit, resources estimated to tens of billions tons of oil equivalents, RIA Novosti reports.

He also stressed that Russia is obliged to develop trans-border resources jointly with Norway, Oilru.com reports.

Read also: Norway and Russia sign maritime delimitation agreement

As previously reported, Trutnev last week confirmed that Statoil will be given exclusive rights as Norwegian partner in all the transborder projects. Other foreign companies will have to negotiate with the parts to get stakes, he underlined.

The deal signed last week in Murmansk could thus give Russia a new oil and gas province, Trutnev says. He believes that prospects are big both on the Russian and Norwegian side of the border.

-There are up to ten structures which we believe can be adhered to the category of “huge” and “unique”, the Russian minister said, RIA Novosti reports. He stressed that exploration in the area can start only after the ratification of the deal by the two countries’ legislative assemblies and that it subsequently will take “at least 5-7 years” to study the structures and a minimum of 12-15 years before production can start.

Trutnev doubts that the shelf will become the new hydrocarbon resource base for Russia by year 2020, an objective proclaimed by federal authorities. -This is a "very complicated and unrealistic task", he says, RBC.ru reports.

As previously reported, Trutnev was part of the Russian delegation attending the signing ceremony on the delimitation of the Barents Sea and the Arctic Ocean. After the ceremony, Trutnev said that the Barents Sea could hide as much as “25 percent of hydrocarbon resources on Planet Earth”.(BarentsObserver)